The Whiny Post

It's been a rough year.  Don't get me wrong, it could be much much worse and I am very thankful for the great blessings in my life, and I am typically one of the most positive people on the planet.  My glass is always half full of sunshine, and I refuse to let things get me down.  But every once in awhile, I reach my limit.  I reached my limit last week.  

At the beginning of the year, my Mother was diagnosed with Stage 4 (two weeks to live) Pancreatic Cancer.  This was a terrible blow for me, as I had never given up hope that we would reconcile and things would be "all right" between us.  I had hoped that this tragedy would bring our family back together and we would make amends, but I was wrong.  Even in the face of death, my family stands their ground and there will be no reconciliation.  I took this news HARD.  I crawled into a mental ball and cried myself a million tears for the first month.  Then I scraped myself up and had to come to terms with it.  My Mother is hanging in there, defying the doctor's prognosis and doing better than anyone expected.   There will be no goodbye's between us, but I will hang on to my memories of her and my childhood, as I have for the past 12 years without her.

Then Shandi moved out.  Shandi is not ready to live on her own.  You can't tell a teenager that though, it's like listening to Charlie Brown's teacher "wahhhh wahhhhhh wahhhhhh wahhhhh".  But, she left anyhow, and moved into a nasty little apartment in the worst part of town she could possibly find.  She is happy on her own, and if she's happy, I'm happy for her.

Then Shandi totaled my car.  No, she wasn't hurt.  But I was extremely attached to my car.  I LOVED my car.  Joe bought it for me for my birthday in 07.  I have to digress for a moment and say that Joe is the best gift giver on the planet.  He thinks of the best gifts EVER.   They aren't always expensive or extravagant, sometimes they are simple and super cheap.  But they are always perfect.  The gift of the car was the coolest and most unexpected gift I've ever received.  It was a huge surprise, a beautiful white and pink limited edition Ford Mustang.  The interior lighting was pink, the stitching on the black leather seats was pink, the striping was pink.  I LOVED THIS CAR.  And I let Shandi drive it and she totaled it.  Yes, I know, hindsight is something else, huh?  I was already teetering on an emotional tightrope when she wrecked the car, so this was getting me super close to starting the whiny "why me's".  

Then Joe and I suffered a pregnancy loss.  It was a very complicated situation.  I knew there would ultimately be a loss from the very beginning.   The baby was unhealthy and thanks to modern medical technology we knew that from very early on.  That doesn't necessarily make the loss any easier to deal with.  As the weeks went on, we went from not wondering WHEN I would lose the baby, but IF we would lose the baby.  But knowing what we already knew from the ultrasounds, the result of not losing the baby early on was more than I could bear.  Eventually, the WHEN finally and naturally occurred, and it was tougher than I thought it would be.  I have suffered pregnancy losses before,  I have been pregnant seven times and have three kids. You can do the math on that.  And if I hadn't had so many other emotional things occurring, it would have been much easier to cope with.

I am a very strong person.  I can handle and have handled some pretty crappy things in my life, and I always feel like I've learned a lesson and become stronger after I ultimately cross the finish line.  But everyone has limits, and I hit mine after I lost the baby.   Lucky for me, I have been blessed with the best husband ever.  I ultimately run the day to day goings-on of the Mack house.  Joe just sort of hangs around letting me do my thing and stays out of the way.  But his perception is keen, so even though he is floating around in the background singing old Motown songs most times, he is very aware of everything that takes place in the home.  And last week he knew I reached the limit.  And he quietly put his cape on and swooped in and took charge.  Sort of.  I call Joe "The Coach" for a reason.  He just reminds me of an old school, rough around the edges, rub dirt on a wound sort of coach.  He's always been like that, and as he gets older it gets more comical.  If one of the boys hurts a body part, he will say "the bone isn't sticking out, you're fine", and that's pretty much it.  Or, my all time favorite response of "go eat some grass" if one of the boys has a stomach ache.  Sympathy is tough to get out of Joe.  Not that he doesn't feel sympathetic, he just has a super awkward way of showing it.  Don't get me wrong, he has the warmest and most awesome shoulder and heart in the world, and he is quick to pull me to it if I'm sad.  But he does something really really odd when he knows something is wrong, or if there is a problem.  He throws presents at it.  So last week when I hit the bottom of the bottomless pit I threw myself into, he kicked in to full gear and a new computer, a trip to Sephora, the green light to pick the new car of MY choice, and a brand new craft room in what used to be Shandi's room later, I'm on the mend.  That plus a lot of time on that giant warm shoulder of his, and I'm nearly good as new.  I don't need sympathy, I'm truly fine.  If I wasn't fine I wouldn't have been able to even write about it.  

If I write about something, I'm already on the other side of it.